Cable is the time-traveling son of Cyclops. He was infected with the deadly techno-organic virus at a young age, which he kept at bay using his advanced psionic powers. He also raised the mutant messiah, Hope Summers.

Origin

Cable, born Christopher Charles Summers, is the son of Scott Summers (the X-Man Cyclops) and Madelyne Pryor, who was a clone of Jean Grey. Mr. Sinister had hoped to use the boy as a weapon against Apocalypse but was unable to do so. Apocalypse infected the infant with a techno-organic virus, an incurable affliction. Cable was taken to the future and raised. He returned to the present to fight Stryfe and to stop the ascension of Apocalypse in the future.

Creation

Cable's first full-grown appearance was in New Mutants Issue #87, but he had appeared earlier on (unknown as to his true future) as an infant some years before, in Uncanny X-Men #201. The infant of Nathan Summers was first written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Rick Leonardi.

The character of Cable was created by Rob Liefeld and was mostly framed by writers Louise Simonson and Fabian Nicieza who patterned the character after Liefeld's plots. It wasn't until much later that Nathan Christopher Summers, infant son of Cyclops and the mercenary visiting from the future, were linked as being the same individual.

Character Evolution

Before he became Cable, he was the infant son of Cyclops and was sent into the future for protection. As a child, Cable possessed a mild form of psionic abilities.

Later, Cable appeared as a man with mysterious roots. He first led everyone to believe that he was simply a man with cyborg parts. This characterization slowly changed into that of a mutant with robot parts. His character finally evolved into the child that Cyclops had sent into the future, revealing him as a mutant with techno-organic parts.

His first mission was ensuring Stryfe didn't interfere with the ascension of Cannonball as a High Lord. This storyline quickly ended without resolution when Marvel dropped the Externals concept. He was then simply leader of a team that defied Xavier's dream while continuing to fight for its own ideals.

After learning to suppress his Techno-Organic Virus, Cable gained nearly unrivaled power, which he used in an effort to make the world better.

After losing those powers, he dubbed himself the protector of Hope Summers and took her into the future for protection.

Major Story Arcs

Childhood

Inferno

Madelyne Pryor rises to power as the Goblyn Queen and agrees to help N'astirh bridge Limbo with Earth as part of her Inferno. Part of the spell needed to do so is the use of babies to act as a portal. Christopher is abducted and set in the sky as a piece of a mystical pentagram that pens the portal, which pours demons into New York City. Christopher and the other babies are rescued by the New Mutants and the X-Terminators, but Christopher is soon back in the mix, as Madelyne intends to sacrifice him for the ultimate spell that will forever bridge Limbo with Earth. Fortunately, Christopher has a telepathic rapport with Jean Grey and he guides her and the X-Factor team to rescue him. Despite feeling his own mother's evil intent, Christopher stays relatively calm until rescued by Cyclops and Jean Grey.

The Techno-Organic Virus

Now Part Metal

Scott and Jean care for the baby, keeping the name of Nathan Christopher. Apocalypse, apparently having learned of Sinister's plan at some point, abducts baby Nathan and infects him with a deadly techno-organic virus on the Inhumans' lunar base before X-Factor can save him.

Askani, a member of a sisterhood in the future that fights against Apocalypse (the Askani Clan), appears and tells Cyclops that Nathan will die from the T-O virus unless she takes him 2000 years into the future. Cyclops has no choice but to agree and allows his son to be sent to the future with X-Factor's sentient computer Ship watching over him. Ship, created by the Celestials and once under Apocalypse's control, had been almost destroyed by a similar T-O virus and reduced to a pod that lay dormant in young Nathan's chest cavity with its eons of information lost or damaged when it entered the time-stream.

The leader of the Askani clan, known as Mother Askani, turns out to be a time-displaced Rachel Summers, which is Scott and Jean's daughter from another reality. Nate is cloned in case he doesn't survive the Askani's treatment for the virus. However, the Askani are attacked by those loyal to Apocalypse, who take the clone believing it to be the real Nathan. Apocalypse raises the infant as his heir and future vessel and dubs him Stryfe, the Chaos-Bringer. Despite the doubts, Nathan survives his T-O infection.

The Early Years

Redd and Slym with Cable

Mother Askani/Rachel is able to bring the psyches of honeymooning Scott and Jean into the future to raise and protect Nate during a particularly violent time when Apocalypse's purges were threatening the Askani's existence. Inhabiting new bodies and using the names Slym and Redd Dayspring, they raise Nathan for 12 years. He helps them to defeat Apocalypse for good when they stop him from transferring his essence into Cable's cloned half, Stryfe.

Slym and Redd return to their bodies in the present and Nathan is left by himself. He is guided by Blaquesmith to seek out the severely weakened Askani Clan and to learn of their teachings. Upon finding them he trains with his future wife Aliya. The Askani Cloisters are attacked and Stryfe turns the leader, Sanctity, to his side of anarchy.

Clan Chosen

Aliya Dying in Cable's Arms

Stryfe builds up an army and Nathan starts the Clan Chosen, a group that struggles against Stryfe's army and the corrupt government of the New Canaanites. In one battle, the confusion between the two enemies is evident. Cable and his Clan Chosen think an attack is being led by the New Canaanites and they try to lead the battle away from the camp. Cable leaves Aliya and his son Tyler at camp. The diversion is ineffective and a bomb is dropped on the base camp. Cable rushes into the carnage and finds his wife. She asks him about their son. Cable doesn't know where Tyler is but tells Aliya that the boy is safe. Aliya then dies in his arms. Boak informs the group of rebels that the attack wasn't led by the New Canaanites but by Stryfe's anarchistic forces. To add salt to the wound Aliya's passing inflicts upon Cable, Boak informs him that Tyler was taken captive by Stryfe in the raid.

One mission leads Cable and his team to stumble upon a blast site where they find one lone survivor. Cable stops Tetherblood from killing the man, opting instead to send up a signal to the Canaanites to come and find their man. This man would soon become Sinsear, an avowed enemy to Cable.

At a later encounter with Stryfe, Cable tracks Stryfe to some hidden venting tunnels in Michigan. There, Stryfe gets the jump on Cable's team. As a surprise move, Tyler gets introduced as the newest initiate into Stryfe's forces, having been mentally manipulated by the mutant Frisco. Tyler then puts Nathan in an impossible situation by mind-linking with one of Nathan's teammates, Dawnsilk. Cable has to choose between the woman or his now-demented son. Seeing that Tyler is lost, he chooses his teammate and shoots Tyler (mentally damaging Dawnsilk in the process), an action that will turn Tyler against him, even when the mind control is gone. After many years and battles, Stryfe escapes into the past and Nathan has to follow him.

First Contact

Upon arriving in the present, Cable lands in Scotland. He had hoped to arrive at Xavier's, but time travel isn't an exact art. His first contact is the Reverend Craig. Believing Cable to be the Devil's Herald, Reverend Craig incites the village against Cable. Moira MacTaggert shows a kind face and takes Cable to her research facility to run some tests. Due to the techno-organic virus, Moira's machinery goes haywire and blows up. Cable is just barely able to save Moira from a machine barreling down on her. He then reads her mind and learns English so as to tell her his intentions in meeting with Charles Xavier. She informs the Professor that Cable is on his way. (As he leaves, he mind wipes Wolfsbane, who had been present but couldn't be allowed to know he was there.)

Upon arriving in New York, Cable walks the streets to familiarize himself with the 20th Century. While doing some research on Charles Xavier, Cable hears screaming and learns that a bank is being robbed nearby. He sneaks in and gets ambushed by the Vulture, who is committing his first bank heist. The bank blows up and Cable is found in the wreckage by a man named Franklin Rhodes. Rhodes takes him home, as he recognizes Cable as a man touched by war. Meanwhile, Wolverine had helped capture a being named D'Von Kray up in Canada, a guy from the future who had come to the past to take Cable out. After the Canadian authorities attempt to reprogram Kray and outfit him with working armaments, Kray escapes and finds Cable in New York. They fight and Cable wins, but Rhodes dies in the shoot-out. Wolverine is a little calloused at Cable's loss and this supposedly causes a rivalry that lasts decades.

Six Pack / Wild Pack

Six Pack

Cable later forms a mercenary group, the Wild Pack. (It would later be known as the Six Pack when Silver Sable informs them the name is already taken.) Taking money from whomever offers it, the then Wild Pack head to New Mexico to infiltrate a HYDRA research lab to recover a stolen component. Cable leads as they breach the lab with very little trouble and Hammer breaks into the system to acquire the part. Having done so, a message from Baron von Strucker plays on a big screen and alerts the team that they have twenty seconds to escape with their lives. Having acquired the part, Cable simply bodyslides the team outside the facility before it blows up. The Wild Pack returns the item to A.I.M., their contractor, who informs the team that the thing is a dud. A.I.M. simply wanted to see how far HYDRA had gotten with their research. They handsomely pay Cable's outfit for their troubles.

At one point during Cable's tenure with the Six Pack, he travels to the future and has his computer, Professor, research a group of seemingly immortal mutants called Externals. Sam Guthrie's name comes up in the search and apparently was living well into the 24th century, and going by the codename Cannonball in the 20th century when he would potentially first realize he was an External. Cable takes a particular interest in Sam because he had the potential to become a High Lord with the ability to hinder the ascension of Apocalypse. He returns to the present to continue hounding Stryfe, find a mutant messiah (whom he initiallly things is Cannonball), lead the Six Pack for a few more missions, and stop the ascension of Apocalypse.

Perhaps Cable's most trying time with his team came during a mission for Tolliver. Tolliver had contracted the team for some easy corporate payback in Afghanistan and the Six Pack agreed that working for this guy would be well for them. Unfortunately, on a subsequent mission, this did not prove to be the case. Checking up on an opium route, Domino finds a secret hatch and Cable orders the team inside. Due to their snooping, they run right into a Stryfe operation. They escape, but the fact that they broke contract with Tolliver means a large target is placed on their backs. Cable then leads the team on missions to get at Stryfe. They finally find an installation and Cable has Hammer download a disk of information. Stryfe then appears and takes Garrison Kane hostage. Hammer is willing to give the disk over for Kane's life so Cable shoots Hammer in the back. Stryfe still gets the disk and leaves as the base begins to explode. Cable bodyslides out on his own and leaves his team to fend for themselves. Kane and Hammer would both be seriously injured. Everyone else would simply hold a grudge.

New Mutants

Having gone solo, Cable tracks Stryfe's group to the Freedom Force base. He gets slagged and left behind and has to escape the Freedom Force cronies. It's not easy, but he does get to use Pyro's fire shooters at Blob while almost decapitating Super Sabre. Cable thinks he gets clear of Freedom Force until he gets cornered in New York City. Fortunately, some of the New Mutants happen by and help him fight off the "government issue" mutants.

Cable then accompanies the New Mutants to their school. Moira MacTaggart is there trying to get Wolfsbane to go back to Scotland with her. Cable steps in and requests that Wolfsbane stays. Moira agrees, but only because she knows that Cable would be good for the kids. In the New Mutants, Cable sees a dual need: they need a mentor/teacher and he needs recruits for his cause. His methods are far more militaristic than past mentors and the New Mutants soon become the pariah of the X-Teams.

The New Leader

With the New Mutants

The introduction of Cable as the New Mutant leader not only rubs the other teams the wrong way, but one of his own students. Rictor is livid that Cable is now his boss. He won't tell anyone why he hates Cable so much. He does, however, decide that he'll go off on his own and cause some trouble in the Morlock Tunnels. He ends up getting in trouble and Cable has to go down and save the boy. This is the first excursion the team has taken and Cable leads them in a far more militaristic way. They encounter the Masque and the Morlocks, Sabretooth, and Caliban, all in one fell meeting. All Cable cares about is that Rictor is retrieved. Cable has the New Mutants watch as Caliban breaks Sabretooth's back - then they head home.

Days of Future Present

Cable and the New Mutants then get involved in the Fantastic Four battle with Ahab (during the Days of Future Present arc). Here is when Cable lets the other teams know that he is now in charge of the New Mutants. The team doesn't take a huge role in the fight. (The irony with the Days of Future Present arc is that the son of Cyclops was abducted and Cable fought to recapture him. It was later revealed that Cable was the actual son of Cyclops. In essence, Cable unknowingly fought for his past life so that he could even exist in the present. He didn't learn the truth about his lineage until much later.)

The New Mutants are then led to Madripoor. Cable has tracked Mutant Liberation Front activities to the crime city and plans to defeat Stryfe with the added help of Sunfire. The MLF plans to release a drug into the drinking water of major cities unless all their demands are met. The team splits up and Sunfire leads the flyers while Cable takes the ground troops. While Sunfire's group gets captured, Cable takes on a new enemy, his old rival Wolverine. The fight is pretty brutal and is only stopped by the quick thinking of Rictor. Realizing the two men are on the same side, the team up and take down the MLF by detonating explosives within the same warehouse as the chemical drug. The good guys make it out alive, but so do the bad guys.

X-Tinction Agenda

It isn't until the events of the X-Tinction Agenda that Cable is officially labeled a mutant and that his eye starts glowing. During the event, Cable shows a very gruff and abrasive side, along with an aspect of genuine care for the young mutants. He gets bent all out of shape when Genoshan Magistrates attack and Storm locks all the experienced mutants in the underground portion of the X-Mansion. He also takes the assimilation of Wolfsbane into a mutate pretty hard, especially since he is the one who had asked Moira MacTaggart to let Wolfsbane stay in his care. The make matters worse, one of his charges, Warlock, is killed. When confronted by Cameron Hodge, Cable has no scruples about taking the man on, one-on-one. Cable gets beat pretty bad.

During the attack on the Genoshan Citadel, Cable also shows incredible respect for mutants from the other teams, whether from planned attacks or impromptu. He approves of a formal plan by Cyclops and, even more impressive, gets into a drop-of-a-hat battle alongside Gambit to try to free the prisoners. Once Hodge is defeated, Cable takes his New Mutants home, minus the deceased Warlock and the genetically altered Wolfsbane. (Wolfsbane wanted to stay in Genosha to help free other mutates with Havok.)

A New Direction

Back in the X-Mansion, Cable tries to salvage what he can of his team. While looking at new recruits, Deadpool shows up and states that Tolliver has put a hit on Cable's head. With some New Mutant teamwork, and the timely arrival of Domino, Deadpool is subdued and mailed back to Tolliver. During this time, however, Rictor leaves the team in search for Wolfsbane in Genosha. Sunspot follows shortly thereafter when his father dies. Cable plays the part of the tough love parent and allows these core members to leave while recruiting more obscure but cutthroat members for his new team, including Warpath, Domino, Shatterstar, and Feral. He determines to make a band of soldiers for a war he fears is looming.

Kings of Pain

Sensing that the X-Mansion is no longer safe for his team, as soldiers from Shatterstar's world followed him there, as did Morlocks following Feral, Cable moves the team out. The first conflict this new group of mutants must face deals with two mutants sucking energy from various points on the Earth. Investigation, during this Kings of Pain story arc, leads to a brief encounter with the New Warriors. The two groups fight over a misunderstanding and then team up to try to stop the energy suckers. It seems that the goal all along was for the energies to be used to resurrect Proteus, Moira MacTaggart's son. The attempt is successful and all the assembled X-Teams get pulled into nexus in which they try to plan how to stop Proteus from forming a world that makes perfect sense. Oddly enough, Cable is against destroying Proteus even though it would be for the greater good. Cyclops, on the other hand, wants to talk Proteus into killing himself to achieve his own perfection. Proteus ends up going along with Cyclops and Cable's team move on to find their new home.

X-Force

The New Mutants line-up gets shaken up and the team officially changes its moniker to X-Force. This incarnation first tries to take down the Mutant Liberation Front with little success. Cable's group does damage a member or two, but Stryfe is able to get away yet again. Seeing a need for more teamwork, Cable leads a training session in which he lets Feral hide while the other X-Forcers seek. This ends up being a bad idea, as Feral goes feral and rips right through Cannonball's stomach. Cable has no recourse but to shoot Feral with a sedative and hope that Cannonball pulls through. (He does.)

Sabotage

A short time later, Cable decides to let his team loose on a situation that other more formal superhero teams won't touch (see Sabotage). They want to stop Black Tom and the Juggernaut from blowing up the World Trade Center. When they arrive, Cable sees that Siryn has already tried to handle the two, as she was once a partner of the two. She joins Cable's team. A ground team attempts to take out the Juggernaut (with Spider-Man swinging in to offer a hand) while Cable leads a team to confront Black Tom. The criminal has businessmen trapped, including Gideon and the former New Mutant Sunspot. Cable's threats are only met by Black Tom showing a detonator that is rigged to blow the building they are in. Further threats force Black Tom to push the button. The mutants are spared, but the top of the building is a wreck and Cable sends his squad out to find any survivors. He then pursues Black Tom. He finds him by an open elevator shaft. Black Tom tries to strike a deal (as that's what all heroes accept) but Cable will hear nothing of it; he unloads his gun into Black Tom and sends him down the elevator shaft. Black Tom won't die, however, due to intervention of Deadpool and Tolliver. Cable regroups with his team and leave as G.W. Bridge arrives on the scene.

"Death" of Cannonball

Shortly thereafter, the team then must deal with the supposed death of Cannonball. The Morlocks and the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants attack X-Force in their own home. When Sauron "kills" Cannonball, Cable believes this death to be the birth of Cannonball as a High Lord, which seems to be the case because Cannonball is reanimated. (This belief of Cable's wouldn't be explored much further because the Externals were killed off and Cannonball's supposed death was never revisited.) At the end of the fight, Cable allows Shatterstar to kill Masque.

Sam heals quickly. As the group cools down from the attack Shatterstar gets accidentally kicked into a wormhole. Cable leads X-Force through to retrieve their teammate. They end up in another dimension that drives the men to blood-lust. The Warheads are also present and the teams but heads. The Warheads are whisked away and X-Force is left to fight some jumbo cats. Cable does his best to keep his troops together but begins to feel the increased testosterone pumping through him. He does his best to monitor Cannonball to ensure nothing happens. The Warheads soon return as the slaves of a witch and they quickly fight X-Force. Cable's crew gets their heads together and break the witch's spell in time for them to jump in the wormhole to go home.

Reckoning with Tolliver

Upon returning, Cable and part of his X-Force team heads to the Morlock Tunnels to leave the freak mutants a message: Stop messing with X-Force. As Cable is making this statement, Deadpool infiltrates the X-Force base and checks in with Domino, who is really his girlfriend Copycat, a mutant pretending to be Domino. Deadpool gives her a whipping to remind her whose team she is on. Cable finds her beaten and she admits that she works for Tolliver. Cable orders the team to start packing up, as they are going to have Domino take them to Tolliver. Before they can leave, however, G.W. Bridge's new team, Weapon: PRIME, shows up and fights X-Force. Cable teleports all the machinery and weaponry out of the base and then narrowly escapes with the fake Domino. X-Force also makes it out alive, but Cable is cut off from them. Angered, Cable has Domino lead him to Tolliver. In Tolliver's Italian mansion, he finally learns that his Domino is a fake and the real Domino has been a prisoner of Tolliver's for around a year. He frees Domino and the two get separated when Cable blows up Tolliver's helicopter. Domino goes off to find Cable's X-Force while Cable bodyslides to his space base, Graymalkin. He then commits himself to making the difference he's tried since arriving in the present.

Paying a Debt

Sending the Clavis Key Back

Cable is sidetracked, however, by a company called MyS-Tech when a group of Warheads takes a wormhole right into Cable's home. Cable kills each member of the Malkuth Troop (including Boot, who is later reanimated by Vorin to become a Shadow Rider) except for Che, whom he takes as a confidante within MyS-Tech's ranks. In his "down" time, Cable takes up the task of helping out the Time Guardians as a favor he owes them. The Warheads (a group of inter-dimensional mercenaries employed by MyS-Tech) inadvertently stole the Clavis Key, a device used to keep dimensions in check. He begins his mission by hunting down a MyS-Tech drug deal at a rave. There he teams up with Nick Fury and Badhand, as they wish to infiltrate MyS-Tech as well. Cable has a man on the inside (Che) and he and Badhand sneak in when defense systems are taken down. They are quickly accosted by Bysshe but are able to shut her down. Cable grabs the Clavis Key and the two men escape. The higher-ups at MyS-Tech have the men followed by the Harpies. Cable heads to the Patron Manga stone circle to return the key but, despite some nifty maneuvering, the Harpies ensnare Cable in a tractor beam before he can place the key in the lock. Badhand fights his own stasis ray and blasts the Harpies. Cable then places the key in the lock and it disappears. Cable's debt is paid.

Cable later tussles with MyS-Tech when he monitors huge amounts of psionic energy emanating from the MyS-Tech base. He butts heads with the Shadow Riders (especially the reanimated Boot) but ultimately joins their fight against MyS-Tech. The fight takes the group to another dimension called Arena World where they have to fight a being named Abadon. The fight is brief and Cable returns to Earth with the Shadow Riders and then heads back to Graymalkin.

Refocused

To begin making a difference, Cable begins tracking the movement of the Mutant Liberation Front. He lies in wait at a museum in Paris, France and surprises the MLF as they try to steal a sword. Sumo grabs the sword but Cable shoots him in the head; the MLF scatters. Cable gets possession of the sword and has a friend of his in Egypt analyze it. It's not a priceless artifact, but it does bear an uncanny resemblance to other art pieces from various periods of time. Coincidentally, these art pieces have been the subjects of various museum thefts. Cable learns of two remaining artifacts, one in Egypt and the other in Japan, and lies in wait in the Egyptian museum for the MLF. They show and Cable ambushes them again. He's still not able to apprehend any of them.

Back at his safehouse in Switzerland, Cable tries to run some diagnostics on the MLF operations thus far. He doesn't get far when Kane breaks into his house and the two have a royal scuffle. Cable is finally able to subdue Kane. When asked about the attack and the hatred, Kane shows a holographic image of Stryfe removing his helmet. Cable had never known that he and Stryfe shared the same face. Cable manages to convince Kane that he is not Stryfe and also makes a deal that if Kane helps him bag Stryfe then Cable will get some futuristic help for Hammer. Kane agrees.

The two visit the Silver Samurai and convince him to let them switch out an ancestral mask that Stryfe may be after. They trace the mask to some ruins in Mexico. There, the MLF jumps Kane and Cable and Stryfe puts Cable in a similar position is offering to exchange Kane's life for a data disk. Cable, again, doesn't comply and Stryfe just about kills Cable. Kane steps in and fries Stryfe. The three are seriously wounded. Cable, instead of finishing off Stryfe, timeslides Kane into the future and has his arms fixed with futuristic technologies. Cable then leaves Kane in the future while he goes back to the present.

Assassination Attempt on Professor Xavier

Bitter Battle

Cable believes in following Professor X's dream of harmony between humans and mutants but their perspectives as to how that dream would be realized differs. Cable believes that Xavier's methods are too soft during hard times and the dream requires a much more aggressive approach.

Due to Cable's aggressive tactics, it was no problem for everyone to assume that the man who shot Professor X with a techno-organic virus was indeed Cable, as the man looked just like him. This event (during the X-Cutioner's Song) is actually performed by Stryfe, who is bent on taking revenge on his "parents" Cyclops and Jean Grey. The combined forces of the X-Men and X-Factor searches for Cable and even arrests his X-Force for information. They know nothing because he had gone off grid when the X-Force base had been destroyed by Tolliver. Cable had taken the fight to Tolliver, rescued Domino, supposedly killed Tolliver, traveled to and from the future, and then returned to the present by the time the Professor had been shot.

Returning to the present in his space station Graymalkin, Cable learns about the assassination attempt. He also learns that he is the prime suspect. Seeking to clear his name, Cable determines to find and kill Stryfe and figures that Department K will have the most information on the Mutant Liberation Front. It appears that someone has already beaten him to the Canadian facility, as all the guards are engaged elsewhere. Cable simply walks in the Records Room and meets up with Wolverine and Bishop. These men were there to find information on Cable and a battle ensues. Cable eventually surrenders on the condition that the other men will let him explain his position. Bishop is wary but Wolverine gives Cable a chance. The men escape the facility and Cable bodyslides them all to Graymalkin.

The three men have a difficult time trying to reckon the connection between the assassination attempt of Xavier and the kidnapping of Cyclops and Jean Grey, as well as how Cable, Stryfe, and Apocalypse all fit within the plan. Cable relates that Stryfe shares his face and the men figure that Cable is either a clone of Stryfe or vice versa. The men figure that Stryfe is using Apocalypse as a mask and search all the old hideouts on Earth. Wolverine then remembers that Apocalypse had a moon base that Stryfe could have taken over. He then remembers a faint feeling he had from Jean. Cable reroutes Graymalkin's teleportation abilities to get them to the moon. They relate their findings to Storm back on Earth and she requests that they wait for the other teams. Cable refuses.

The three teleport to the moon and get immediately overwhelmed by Stryfe's Dark Riders. Fortunately, the other X-Teams are able to arrive in time to save them. Cable leads a very small group after Stryfe, who has taken Cyclops and Jean Grey onto the surface of the moon and to a large tower. At the tower, Cable and Havok are able to pass through a force field. The others are left behind. Stryfe informs the men that only those with Summers blood coursing through their veins could pass through the force field. He then informs Cable that Stryfe is the real person and Cable is a mere copy. Cable's body gets blasted and all his synthetic skin comes off, revealing that half his body is metal. Jean Grey makes a protective barrier for everyone else while Cable and Stryfe go at it. Cable tosses a switch to Cyclops and tells him to hit when the time is right. Cyclops works out that Cable is going to self-destruct and the switch will generate the time flux energies around the tower to suck Cable and Stryfe to only heaven knows where. At the pivotal moment, Cable's body detonates and Cyclops engages the time flux, essentially creating a hole that the tower, Stryfe, and Cable are sucked in to.

The Return

While the X-Universe tries to pick up the pieces resulting from Stryfe’s machinations, Cable is temporally displaced. He is able to find his way back to his home in the future. He resolves to find Kane and return to the past. He enters a Clan Chosen safehouse just after the Flatliners attack. Cable helps his team blast through the mercenaries and then informs them that he needs their help getting Kane back to the past. Oddly, Cable has grown a very uncharacteristic goatee.

The Return to the Present

The Clan Chosen breaks in the New Canaanite Tinex in Niagara Falls. Before they can reach the time chamber they are attacked by Flatliners. Outmanned, Cable asks Boak to send out an electrical pulse that should take out the Flatliners. Hope adamantly discourages this, but Boak does as he’s asked and fries his circuitry. The team gets to the time chamber and Hope scans the timelines to find Kane’s. Cable preps Kane, who guesses that Cable will actually be going back with him. Cable affirms this and the two step through the time-stream once Hope has finally locked on to the right node. Cable and Kane end up in Cable’s time chamber, but Cable doesn’t know why the power is off. He doesn’t know that X-Force cleaned out Graymalkin so that SHIELD and Stark Industries wouldn’t get ahold of his futuristic technology. Cable’s time chamber now rests at the bottom of the ocean. After shaving off his goatee (explaining that he didn’t really know why he grew it in the first place) Cable hooks the chamber to his personal battery system and answers a few questions that have been nagging Kane. Cable explains that he’s not sure how it happened, but that he believes that he is a clone of Stryfe. He then states that he looks forward to killing Cyclops and Jean Grey, a statement that clearly shows that a screw may be loose.

After some time Cable explains that they are ready to teleport to his safehouse in Switzerland. Upon arriving, however, they find that G.W. Bridge has made himself very comfortable. Cable confronts Bridge with a gun, to which Bridge tries to clear away with the statement that he can find X-Force for Cable. The two duke it out until Kane steps in and shifts the focus onto helping heal Hammer’s spine. Bridge then gives an update: Domino has hooked up with the other half of the Six Pack (plus Copycat) in order to find X-Force and X-Force has recently shut Graymalkin down.

The three men then travel to Camp Verde, the latest X-Force base. There they meet up with Domino and Grizzly. Copycat is also present and she rushes into Cable’s arms. Cable, however, didn’t realize that he’d had any type of relationship with Copycat since he never knew that she had impersonated Domino in all his time with X-Force. He shunts her off to the side and she slinks away unnoticed. Upon exiting a building, Cable is confronted by Hammer and his weaponized Winnebago. Hammer threatens to kill Cable but is talked down by Kane, who tells Hammer that they have brought technology from the future to fix Hammer’s back. Hammer refuses and the Six Pack looks to be back together. Bridge, however, refuses to let Cable in if he continues to keep secrets from the team. He can’t promise them otherwise and the team leaves him in Camp Verde as they pursue the barely noticed missing Copycat.

Reuniting with X-Force: A New Focus

Left alone at Camp Verde, Cable awaits his former team as they get back from rescuing Rusty and Skids from the Friends of Humanity. He hides when the team shows up. They know someone is trespassing and Cannonball splits the group up to find out what is up. Cable takes each team out until Cannonball corners his old teacher. The reunion is both awkward and exciting, as each team member has a different relationship with Cable. The reunion, however, is short lived when the perimeter is breached. Exodus descends.

Showdown with Magneto

Getting Shredded

Exodus rebuffs X-Force and takes Cannonball, Sunspot, and Rusty and Skids. Cable notices that Cannonball planted a homing device and he leads the team to Graymalkin, Magneto's newest base he now dubs Avalon. Cable finds the Professor and extracts him from Magneto's network. The two men clash and Magneto rips Cable's metal body parts to ribbons. Cable manages to escape but becomes completely dependent on his X-Force team to keep him alive. After a week being hooked up to machines that help restore his body, Cable finally awakens. He realizes that he's led his team incorrectly for far too long and determines to make his soldiers less like himself and more into who they should be.

Martin Strong and Adam-X

Hearing of a mutant named Martin Strong who is trying to eradicate the x-gene, Cable sets a plan in motion to have Feral captured by Strong Industries while Cannonball and Siryn become undercover interns. Cable then finds Adam-X and convinces him to lead the rest of X-Force into a confrontation with Strong himself. Cable is willing fight Strong but rebuffs the idea of destroying the labs so as to maybe help some mutants in the future. Cable gets the upper hand and reduces Strong to his true form. Seeing the threat passed, Cable leaves with his team and invites Adam-X to join the team. He is refuses for the time being and X-Force returns to their base at Camp Verde.

The New Mutant Liberation Front

Hearing that Henry Peter Gyrich has been kidnapped by the re-upped Mutant Liberation Front, Cable takes X-Force to Bermuda to rescue the man no other hero team wants to help. Cable and the team frees the politician and Cable comes head-to-head with the MLF leader, Reignfire. The two fight and discuss their conflicting world views. Cable and the X-Force get the upperhand and Reignfire departs. Cable is angry to see that Feral decides to leave X-Force to join the MLF. To make matters worse, Sunspot has been teleported away to an unknown location.

Reckoning with Sinsear

As Cable tries to rebuild his life with X-Force, he must admit to Cannonball and Siryn that there may be sometimes in which he must do things on his own that are more personal in nature. True to form, Sinsear phases Cable from the X-Force base and picks a fight with his nemesis. Cable, despite having his mechanical parts depowered, is able to use his low-telekinetic abilities to similarly shut down Sinsear.

The Truth About His Past

Ever since his confrontation with Stryfe, Cable has thought that he was the clone and Stryfe was the son of Cyclops and Madelyne Pryor. In Fathers and Sons, Mr. Sinister learns of the truth from Tyler Dayspring (that Cable is the original and Stryfe was the clone) and confronts Cable with the knowledge. To further a revenge plot by Tyler, Sinister taps a part of Cable's mind that stored the being of Stryfe. Stryfe takes over Cable's body and wreaks havoc until convinced to give up his fruitless revenges. Cable wakes up with more questions and finally asks Cyclops about his past.

The Younghunt

When Cannonball and Boom Boom go missing during some time off at the Guthrie Farm, Cable leads the team out to investigate. They learn that the Upstarts are hunting surviving members of the New Mutants and Hellions. Paige Guthrie is the only witness and wants to join the fight, but her underdeveloped powers hold her back. Cable admires the girl's courage. During a fight with Trevor Fitzroy, Cable is able to used Fitzroy's power against him and open a portal into Shinobi Shaw's penthouse. Shaw all-too-readily gives up the location that the captured mutants are being held: his father's rebuilt house. Cable and the team teleport out and run into the New Warriors.

The two teams compare notes and realize that any plan they may have is already known by the Gamesmaster, a very powerful telepath and the person in charge of the Upstarts' contest. Cable tells the teams to use blunt force to try and get through to the prisoners. They do not realize that the Gamesmaster is now using the prisoners to fight for him. Cable is attacked by Cannonball, but Cable jumps on the back of the boy. The velocity, however, begins to dangerously shake Cable. Fighting back the urge to just end his pupil, Cable, in a near panic, orders Cannonball to stop. Cannonball does. Domino pipes up that Cable being a telepath is news. This revelation is brushed aside, as Paige Guthrie, who had followed the team, has made a deal with the Gamesmaster that ends the conflict. Cable wonders what this new deal will really cost.

Mexico

As the New Warriors and X-Force take leave of each other, Cable informs Paige that he can't train her to use her powers. She admits that she doesn't want him. Turning back to his team, Cable sees that Rictor has some personal issues and decides to accompany him to Mexico. In Mexico, Rictor's family mistakes Cable for Stryfe, the latter having dealt in guns and other arms with the family. Despite all the problems with the law, Rictor is disgusted that his family turns on Cable with their weapons instead of trusting Rictor that all is okay. Cable and Rictor leave.

Teaming Up with the Acolytes

Cable then goes to Muir Island to talk to Rachel Grey about her ability to hear Cable's inner computational thoughts. He's not sure he'll attend their "parents" wedding. Moira runs some tests but gets interrupted by Omega Red, who is there to get some ingredients to rid him of his death spore virus. Cable gets whooped (his mechanical parts numbed from the tests). He comes around and learns that Omega Red is going to poison the Earth with his virus. Cable heads out with some supposedly friendly Acolytes to stop the Russian, but not before changing his mind and telling Rachel that he will be at the wedding of Cyclops and Jean Grey.

Cable and the Acolytes follow Omega Red to Magneto's old Arctic base. They get inside and Cable finds that he has control over the innards of the base. He speaks and it listens. This is helpful when the Acolytes turn on him. He discovers that he was merely a pawn in getting Omega Red into their hands so that they can release the death spore virus in space, creating a shield between Avalon and the Earth. The plan is foiled and the Acolytes leave.

.....Cable later breaks into the X-Mansion and has the Danger Room reconstruct the night that Cyclops gave Cable up to Askani. This strikes a nerve with Cyclops because the depiction seems so calloused. The two men talk it out and Cable comes to grips with Cyclops being his biological father. He agrees to attend the wedding of Cyclops and Jean Grey.

The Phalanx Threat

Cable always had some telepathic and telekinetic abilities but he mostly employed them in the constant fight against the T-O virus ravaging his body. Unchecked, the virus would spread throughout his body, ultimately killing him. Cable had shown flashes of these abilities, but nothing too big. When the Phalanx Covenant begins and the X-Men need to be rescued, Cable and Jean Grey team up to mentally assault the Phalanx Collective. The strain is incredible and Cable shows weakness. Surviving the attack, Cable returns to the X-Force base to find that his sentient computer friend, the Professor, has gained a body due to Phalanx interference at the base. The Professor sucks too much power and affects Cable's T-O virus. With no other alternative, the Professor leaves Cable and X-Force to explore the stars. With the Professor gone and his time travel base at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, Cable's ties to his past are no more.

Search for Legion

During Legion Quest, Cable is asked to use Legion's time signature and travel backwards in time to find Iceman, Storm, Bishop, and Psylocke. He does so (with Xavier and Jean Grey acting as his anchors) and makes contact with the confused X-Men. His trip is short and he is soon back in the present. As the earth temporarily ends (turning tides to the Age of Apocalypse), Cable spends time with those he cares for. He and Domino kiss and Cyclops and Jean finally tell Cable that they are Slym and Redd, the surrogate parents that raised him in the future. When the world doesn't actually end, Cable moves X-Force into the X-Mansion and encourages everyone to try to improve on their powers, including himself. He begins to use telepathy to communicate much more.

The Other Half?

Battle Royale

A being named Nate Grey makes the jump from the Age of Apocalypse reality and immediately affects the psionic plane in 616 universe. Telepaths everywhere are unable to use their powers properly. Cable, along with Blaquesmith, tracks the "anomaly" to Cable's safe house in Switzerland. The men find that Nate Grey is an exact replica of Cable and close proximity causes massive psionic backlash. Due to a misunderstanding, Nate Grey attacks Cable. Cable sees what his power would be like if he were unchecked by the T-O virus that he must hold back with his powers. Nate Grey almost destroys Cable, but Cable pushes the man too far and the power Nate Grey holds becomes too much for his body to control. Cable then saves Nate Grey by going into his mind, leaving his own body unchecked.

During the fight with Nate Grey, Blaquesmith reveals that he has the power to stop the "anomaly," but he has only been given the power to do it once. Cable realizes that Blaquesmith is supposed to watch over Cable as more than just a mentor but also an executioner if Cable becomes too powerful.

Soldier X

Cable became Soldier X

For a time, Cable had nearly limitless control over his powers, however he knew the toll wielding such energy would have on his body, so he tried to make a difference while he still could. He wanted to give people a taste of what peace could be like. He used his powers to pull the sunken pieces of his space station Providence out of the ocean and rebuild it as a flying sanctuary, inviting some of the world's greatest minds and anyone else looking to start anew. In a series of interviews with his friend Irene Merryweather, he revealed that: He spent four days re-routing the waterways to flood half the Sahara. He spent two days removing every logger in the amazon. He soothed the pain of every single person on earth suffering from disease. He stopped the white blood cell count deterioration in AIDS patients, attempted to straighten the leaning tower of Pisa. He stopped a daily average of fourteen individual terrorist attacks, eleven hundred attempted murders and seven thousand car accidents.

Cable and Deadpool

Savior or terrorist?

As he was so powerful, governments, SHIELD and the X-Men all worried that he had become drunk with power, and in a way they were just. The X-Men ran over seventy Danger Room simulations trying to find a way to defeat Cable, and came up being terribly defeated every time. SHIELD planned on finding a way to deactivate Providence's anti-gravity generators, which wouldn't have worked anyway because Cable was holding the floating city using only his mind.

Cable gave all governments 48 hour notice that they need to disarm or he would throw all their weapons into the sun. The Six Pack were dispatched to take down Cable, but were easily defeated, most of them chose to side with Cable. The X-Men along with Deadpool attempted an assault on Cable and also were defeated, with Deadpool ambushing Bishop and Wolverine and joining Cable's side again. Eventually Silver Surfer got into the picture and battled Cable. Surfer was concerned that Cable's passion would consume him, and lead him to destroy the world.

While fighting, Cable rebuilt all the damage to the city that ensued during their battle while simultaneously keeping Providence afloat. Cable managed to shatter the Surfer's board, but was defeated by the alien nonetheless. Cable had Deadpool use a teleporter matrix to lobotomize him so he couldn't use his higher brain functions, like telepathy, but not before Cable safely lowered Providence into the South Pacific. Cable went into hiding, barely able to keep himself alive. While he was in hiding, an additional twelve thousand people sought refuge at Providence.

Solo

After X-Force disbanded, Cable went on solo for awhile. Nathan then started teaming with mercenary Deadpool and even joined the X-Men.

Messiah Complex

A New Purpose

During the Messiah Complex, a new Baby Mutant is born on Earth. Cable and the X-Men proclaim the new mutant baby to the be the future savior of mutant and mankind alike. Cable decides that the new mutant baby should be protected at all costs and fights for it. After many events and battles, the baby ends up in Cable's hands. Cable time travels in order to protect him and the baby.

After traveling for five months, Cable arrives in New Jersey in the year 2043 A.D. and in a hostile environment. When Cable attempts to enter a diner, he is attacked by Bishop who has apparently tracked him down and wants to kill the baby because he believes that the baby will bring doom to mutants in the future. When Nathan was about to escape, he was stopped by his father, Cyclops. Cable reasoned with him that the baby will not be safe in present, that she could grow up to be the mutant savior by letting her grow up to the future. Seeing that Cable may have a point, Cyclops let his son escape to the time portal. When Cable arrived in the future, he says, "Now comes the hard part".

Cable

Back to the Future

After the events of Messiah Complex, Cable and the baby have traveled through into an alternate future for the safety of the baby. They were followed by Bishop who is bent on killing the baby because he believes that she is the cause of the mutants being tortured in his reality. After an altercation with Bishop, Cable and the baby take refuge in the house of a waitress named Sophie.

As Cable heals his wounds and tends to the baby he is visited by an old friend Sam "Cannonball" Guthrie. It was found out that Cannonball is the last remaining X-man in that reality and was able to find Cable and the baby mutant by using Cerebra. After figuring out that Bishop was on the way Cannonball stayed behind so that Cable, the baby mutant and Sophie could make their escape. After a battle with Bishop, Cannonball seemed to have the upper hand. Before he could deliver a final blow, Bishop used the technology from his arm to rip out Cannonballs heart and left him dead on the ground.

Elsewhere,Sophie tried to convince Cable to continue to run away saying that he was a good man. Cable's response to her plea was "I'm tired of running". Cable, then destroyed Cerebra at the remains of the X-Mansion in Westchester so that Bishop can't use it against him. Cable then goes into the harmony Band equips himself, and Sophie. He then puts the baby into a metal holster to keep it from harm,the blackbird and finds Bishop. Cable tells Lucas that he should not have followed him, but Bishop ignores it and forward and starts to shoot but steps on a mine. Bishop then uses a car to hit Cable. Bishop is about to kill Cable and the baby when Cable realizes that he can jump to the future and jumps escaping death.

Second Coming

Second Coming

When Hope had reached her late teens, she and Cable time jumped from the future back to the Xavier Institute, discovering for the first time that it had been destroyed and that the X-Men had moved to San Francisco. It is at this time that Bastion moves to kill Hope and the rest of mutant-kind. He sends the Sapien League to kill Hope and Cable, but they receive timely assistance in the form of a primarily X-Force-based team of mutants sent by Cyclops. Despite the efforts of the Sapien League, and the direct intervention of Bastion, Hope is brought unharmed to Utopia, but at the cost of Nightcrawler nobly sacrificing himself to get her away from the proto-Nimrod-like Bastion.

Moving on with his plans despite the setback, Bastion seals Utopia and most of San Francisco in an almost impenetrable energy barrier, then allies himself with a sentinel intelligence in an alternative future, allowing him to besiege the trapped mutants with a growing army of Nimrod sentinels. While Cyclops rallies the mutants to fight for their very existence, he sends Cable, X-Force and Doug Ramsey forward in time to shut down the Nimrod production line and disable the Nimrods at their source. Cable agrees, using the last time jump available to him to take himself and the rest of his team forward in time.

Once there, Cable and X-Force manage to weather the anti-mutant forces, including a physically-offensive Master Mold, and shut down the Master Mold producing the Nimrods, also shutting down the Nimrods that have already jumped in time. However, they discover that the only time gate available leading back to their time cannot be opened by organic beings, and it's closing rapidly. Making one final sacrifice, Cable allows the techno-organic virus to overcome him. Now inorganic, he is able to tear open the time portal, allowing the rest of his team to pass back into their time with minimal injury.

As he holds the time gate open, he sees Hope one final time, begging him to return to her. He smiles at the girl he had come to know as his daughter, and succumbs to the effects of the techno-organic virus, decomposing into metallic fragments. Enraged at the loss of her father, Hope's mutant powers are released, and she uses them to destroy Bastion and break open the shield surrounding San Francisco.

X-Sanction

Cable has recently returned to the present with 24 hours to live before the techno-virus, which has spread dangerously over his body, kills him. Upon visiting the future, he sees an apocalyptic wasteland of ash. He learns that this future could have been prevented by his surrogate daughter Hope, but she was not alive to stop it. He then spends his last 24 hours in the present marvel universe, determined to stop those who killed Hope - the Avengers! Cable begins his plans by unleashing the Lethal Legion from their sky prison and takes out the Falcon to lore Captain America away to his base. During the battle, Cable is able to distract Cap long enough by explaining that freeing Falcon will trigger several explosions in his base and kill all three of them. After he subdues Captain America, he is tracked down by Iron Man and using an advanced Sentinel Iron Man suit armor from a few years in the future. Cable is able to hack into Iron Man's armor and defeat him, but not long enough to where the Red Hulk attacks.

Cable and the Red Hulk go at it, and Cable believes the Red Hulk is really Glen Talbot, but doesn't realize that that time hasn't come yet and during the battle, Cable is taken over by the techno-virus, but is able to use it against the Hulk to defeat him. However, not long after both Wolverine, Spider-man, Hope and Cyclops show up along with Blauqsmith who are able to defeat Cable, disarm the explosives and free the Avengers. A truce is called, but thanks to Cable's actions, the Avengers are now watching the X-men more closely. Soon after in Utopia, Hope channeling the power of the Phoenix is able to not only purge Cable from the techno-virus, but also heal his injuries. Cable warns Cyclops that the war with the Avengers is coming and that he will be needed to save Cyclops very soon.

Avengers vs. X-men

During the conflict between the Avengers and the X-men over the Phoenix, Cable discovered that while he was cured of the techno virus, the long ravaging of his body lead to sever muscle atrophy in his left arm and parts of his face. Severally damaging his right eye. Cable sought out Forge to create new bionic parts to composite for his atrophy.

Cable and the X-Force

Cable forms his own X-Force team once again, composing of Domino, Forge, Colossus, and Dr. Nemesis. Cable has been receiving visions about future problems and must solve them while he is slowly dying. After preventing an outbreak of a techno-organic virus at a meat factory, the Avengers show up at the wrong time thinking Cable's team has just gone on a murder spree. Refusing to turn himself in, Cable attacks the Avengers and the team run and become wanted fugitives. With Boom Boom's help and her joining the team, they end up stopping an alien fleet from destroying Earth by freeing the wanted alien with a bounty on his head from the Raft. The team hides out at Forge's home on a reservation, and Cable reveals the visions have been coming in more frequent numbers. Domino convinces Cable to have him trust his team to split up the work. The Avengers show up and try to apprehend the wanted mutants, but the team manages to resist for a time until Cable arrives and telepathically stuns the Avengers so his team can escape, but Cable collapses in the process with the now recovered Avengers standing over him.

Cable is taken into Avengers Mansion where he is held captive. He talks with Havok, but begins experiencing another premonition, and this time brings Alex in with him so he understands what is going on. After come back, Cable and Havok hear a massive quake as X-Force has busted into the Avengers Mansion to save Cable. Cable's powers begin overloading, but Hope, now wielding the psimitar given to her by her future self, manages to get into the Avengers Mansion and stabs Cable in the skull. The process acts as a release for Cable's rapidly evolving powers, and Havok lets him and Hope leave in peace. Cable and Hope go on a new mission where Cable is watching on as Hope stops a group with a bomb. Hope waits for Forge to hack and disable the bomb, but it continues ticking down. Cable rushes in as it explodes.

Trivia: Cable's first full issue, New Mutants # 87, sold for $2,900 on eBay on February 9, 2010. This issue was a CGC certified 9.9 mint copy of New Mutants #87 with white pages. This issue featured the first appearance of Cable, Stryfe, and the Mutant Liberation Front. The CGC Census currently notes 1,123 copies certified with two copies tied as being the highest graded in 9.9.

Personal Information

Physical Attributes

Height: 6'8"

Weight: 350 lbs.

Eyes: Blue

Hair: White (formerly brown)

Distinguishing Features: Formerly possessed cybernetic left eye, arm, and shoulder due to infection with techno-organic virus

Status

Identity: Publicly known

Occupation: Adventurer; former President of Rumekistan, leader of Providence, mercenary, government agent, freedom fighter

Powers and Abilities

(Current)

Cable still has his innate powers but to a much lesser degree, despite no longer having the virus. He is still a capable telekinetic as he has shown to still be able to fling multiple obese creatures that were able to give Colossus pause through a wall and he could raise a shield that could block a punch from Colossus that would have killed him. His current level of telepathy is still sufficient enough for basic communications and he was temporarily able to stun a small group of Avengers composed of Thor, Rogue, Sunfire, Captain America, and Havok long enough for his team to escape, but he collapsed afterwards.

Due to the techno organic virus being purged from his body, Cable's body is suffering from after effects for having to fight it off for so long. His left arm has severely atrophied and his right eye is useless. Forge has since outfitted Cable with new gear:

Bionic Gauntlet: Due to his arm atrophying so bad, it is severely weakened to the point it is near useless. The gauntlet grants Cable a degree of superhuman strength and it is armed with rockets for offensive purposes.

Cybernetic Eye Impant: Since his eye is useless, Cable wore a special eyepatch for awhile, but has since ditched it for a new cybernetic implant capable of firing a laser powerful enough to destroy one of the Avengers' jets.

On top of his powers and new upgrades, Cable still uses those huge guns of his. He has also been suffering from random precognetic visions that show disasters in the near future.

(Former)

Cable was a mutant and the child of two powerful mutants, therefore; a vastly powerful telepath and telekinetic at his full potential. Although, as an infant, Cable was infected with the Techno-Organic Virus and, for the majority of his life, had to unconsciously keep the virus, that had ravaged the left half of his body, from doing the same to the right side.

When Cable was de-aged, he lost the majority of his powers, however, when he re-aged, he slowly regained his powers along with new powers and abilities.

Telepathy: Ability read minds and project the thoughts of others.

Telepathic Illusion: Ability to create realistic telepathic illusions and cause people to experience events which are not actually occurring.

Telepathic Cloak: Can mask his presence from being detected by others. Can extend these defenses to others around him as well. Cable's abilities can, at times, go undetected or be counteracted by other more powerful telepaths, depending on their level of skill in using their own psi abilities.

Mind Link: Ability to develop a mental link with any person, which remains as a connection to that individual.

Telepathic Camouflage: Ability to mask himself and other peoples' presence from those around him. Can telepathically disguise himself, making his appearance to those around his quite different (changing the appearance of clothing, as well as more involved disguising).

Mind Control: Ability to control the minds and even voluntary and involuntary bodily functions of sentient beings (such as other humans).

Mind Trap: Ability to take another person's mind from their body and effectively trapping that mind within his own.

Mind Possession: Ability to possess the mind of another, and use that beings body as your own.

Mind Alteration: Ability to alter the minds of others by force of will.

Mental Amnesia: Ability to cause loss of particular memories and amnesia in another person or even in a group of people.

Psionic Shield: Ability to erect a psychic shield for protection of himself and of others minds. Cable has proven very difficulty to psychically assail, as he is very well skilled in shielding his own mind from mental-attacks (such as attempts to read, control or harm his own mind), and has been sufficient to protect himself from other psychics.

Psionic Blasts: Can project psionic force bolts which have no physical effects but which can affect a victim's mind, so as to cause the victim pain or unconsciousness and can even kill an adversary.

Astral Projection: Ability to Astral Travel and communicate with others astrally through his own will or through contact with the thoughts and memories of others. In the Astral Plane, he can use his powers to create "ectoplasmic" objects. Cable has a mastery of astral projection, and is able to remain on his own plane of existence or to traverse into any of the so-called "Astral Planes".

Mental Detection: Can sense the presence of another superhuman mutant within a large, but as yet undefined radius of himself, by perceiving the distinctive mental radiations emitted by such a being. At his peak, Nathan is strong enough to sense a stray thought a continent away.

Mind Transferal: Able to transfer both his mind and powers into other host bodies should his own physical body be somehow killed.

Telekinesis: Possesses telekinetic abilities enabling him to manipulate matter with the energy of his thoughts. Capable of very fine control over objects, including himself. On larger levels, Cable can levitate great weights, into the hundreds of tons, but her upper limit has remained undisclosed. At his peak, Nathan could extinguish a star with something less than a conscious effort.

Intuitive aptitude: Can disassemble complex devices explosively (separating every last component, such as screws, nuts, circuit boards, etc.) and, just as quickly, easily assemble complex devices. This also has enabled him to even attain awareness and control over objects as small as individual electrons in an atom. For instance, Cable could detect if a seal was hermetic, or not, by checking for the presence of penetrating oxygen molecules. Can even detect and discern individual oxygen molecules, and determine the atomic weight of molecules, by the amount of atoms present.

Matter Alteration: Ability to alter molecular and atomic structures, in such substances as his own techno-organic components (though this may be a function of telekinesis, as opposed to a discreet superhuman power), and the ability to alter molecular valences.

Psionic Spikes: Ability to create destructive psionic spikes that destroy the physical objects that the spikes come into contact with.

Forcefields: Ability to create protective force shields that could detect even the most powerful of attacks (even filter bacteria from the air). The upper limits of this ability remain unknown, but it is believed that he could probably protect himself from harm at the ground zero detonation of a 1 kiloton nuclear warhead (4.18 terajoules of energy from the heat, concussion and radiation effects). Cable has also displayed such control over the fields as to shape them precisely, even to conform very closely to his body’s form. There does not appear to be any correlation between field strength and the thickness of the telekinetic fields.

Concussive Blasts: Can project telekinetic energies as powerful blast beams directed from his brain that could apparently affect matter with concussive force.

Telekinetic Flight: By levitating himself, he can “fly” at for very long distances and at varying speeds.

Time Travel: Been hinted to have the psionic power to displace himself and others at almost any specific point in the timestream and then reemerging in the physical world from as much as a few minutes to years by generating chronal energies. Could apparently travel in astral form as well. Cable used the ability once with assistance and may no longer be capable of doing so.

After lobotomizing the mutant power portion of his brain, Cable stated his telepathy and telekinesis had faded to almost nothing. and used the "Infonet" and Cone of Silence to surrogate his powers.

Cyberpathy: At one time, Cable had a technological link to the “Infonet,” which acted as a surrogate for his telepathy—instead of reading minds, he was a cyberpath, able to “read” digital information and broadcasts. Cable also displayed the ability to forcefully link other minds to the Infonet (as he demonstrated against Captain America).

Cone of Silence: Prototype forcefield technology customized, by Fixer and Tony Stark, into a suit, used to simulate telekinesis.

Infra-Red Vision: Due to his bionic enhancements, Cable is able to see the infra-red portion of the spectrum.

Super-Strength: His left arm and shoulder posses enhanced strength around 10 tons.

Alternate Realities

Earth-1610/Earth-2107

Earth-1610

The Ultimate universe's Cable is really James Howlett - Wolverine from a future time-line.

Because this version of Cable came from a alternate future reality his own reality wouldn't be Earth-1610 but has been designated Earth-2107.

Earth-295

Earth-295

Cable does not exist in the Age of Apocalypse, instead he has been replaced by Nate Grey, a being that Mr. Sinister created from the DNA of Jean Grey and Scott Summers.

Earth-5070

Earth-5070

This Cable is from an altered version of the 'Days of Future Past'.

Earth-5701

Earth-5701

In this reality, Apocalypse rules the world with the help of his Horsemen of Apocalypse. The horsemen were made up of Angel (Archangel in this reality and is now called Death), Blob (Famine), Spider-Man (Pestilence) and Cable (War). Cable is responsible for genocide on earth and has also killed Deadpool.

Earth-9997

Earth-9997

In Earth X, the technorganic virus has overtaken Cable's whole body and he is now a blob of liquid metal. He survived the telepath massacre that killed all telepaths including Professor X by living under Magneto's city made out of Sentinel, Sentinel City.

Earth-90214

Earth-90214

In this reality Cable is a member of the CIA working with the president. After Outlaw becomes fugitive Cable recommends Deadpool to track her down and retrieve it. Also in timeline Cable and Deapool work comrades in WWII and captured with Deadpool help they were both able to escape capture.

Earth-161

Earth-161

The 'X-Men Forever'' counterpart of Cable is still a young boy who isn't infected by the Techno-organic virus and spends most of his time living with his great-grand parents in Alaska. Although an adult version of Cable had also been briefly seen along side X-Force.

Earth-1020

Earth-1020

A reality where Cable's body had been completely take over by the Techno-organic virus and he married Storm.

Earth-1030

Earth-1030

In this reality Cable had been tasked by the government to lead the N.Y.X.F. a special task force to police the growing mutant population.

Earth-1038

Earth-1038

A spoof reality on the 'retro' X-Men.

Earth-2055

Earth-2055

In the reality where Spiral had conquered the Earth, Cable fought her with the help of X-Force and the 616 version of Shatterstar.

Earth-3031

Earth-3031

This realities Cable was seen attending the funeral of Kane.

Earth-9939

Earth-9939

This reality had been taken over by Baron Strucker VI (Charnel), who had been responsible for the deaths of many superheroes. Cable was among the last surviving super-humans and was apart of the team X-Saviours, along side the Hulk, Storm and Angel. The X-Saviours fought side-by-side with the remaining Avengers.

Earth-9922

Earth-9922

This Cable is a member of Team X and serves along side Bishop, Deathbird, Vertigo (jubilee), Falcon, Doctor Doom, Wolverine and Longshot. Team X sought to free Earth from the control of the Shi'ar Majestrix Alanna, the daughter of Charles Xavier and Lilandra.

Earth-21993

Earth-21993

This version mirrors 616 Cable's history right until the point where he took control the the New Mutants. At which point Xavier would return from being in space with the Starjammers and states that he is disappointed by the condition that mutant/human relations are in. To which end Cable would disagree with Xavier's dream declaring that the X-Men should strike out at their enemies and look out for their own kind instead of pandering to humans. This lead to Xavier demanding that Cable leave the New Mutants, however the team remained loyal to Cable and a fight between the New Mutants and X-Men ensued. After an attempt to brainwipe Cable by Xavier, Cable would in turn assassinate him along with Cyclops and Jean (not knowing his relation to them) in order the split the X-Men apart. Cable's plan had work as the X-Men had split into one team lead by Storm who sought to bring Cable to justice, and the other team was lead by Wolverine who sought to eliminate Cable altogether. As Wolverine and his team hunted down Cable and the New Mutants, they had cornered them in their hidden base and a fight would follow. During the brawl Wolverine would take his vengeance by impaling Cable with his claws. As Cable lay dying, in one final act of defiance, he would mock Logan as that though Xavier was a man driven by strength and will, wolverine was nothing but an animal driven by a berserker rage.

Earth-32098

Earth-32098

In one of the universes created by the 'Ages of Apocalypse' event, where Xavier lead the Skrull mutants, Cable appeared along with the other greatly aged X-Men. In this reality Cable had stopped fighting his Techno-organic virus and had joined Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. At one point an elderly Sunfire had mistaken a now senior Nate Grey for Cable as he looked identical to when Sunfire had last seen Cable.

Earth-58161

Earth-58161

In this reality Cable had managed to realize his dream of bringing world piece. Now going by Brother Nathan in a world where adventure was found through thought and the exploration of the human mind. Deadpool, Cannonball and Siryn passed through this reality as the searched for the real (616) Cable.

Earth-58162

Earth-58162

In another reality that Cannonball, Deadpool and Syrin passed through on their search for 616 Cable, he had been completely consumed by the Techno-organic virus. However ironically the Techno-organic virus had managed to realize Cables goal of world piece in a way via consuming the entire planet.

Earth-58163

Earth-58163

During the House of M Cable existed as a baby under the care of Mister Sinister, a genetics farmer. 616 Deadpool would soon discover that the infant Cable was in fact the true 616 Cable that he had been searching the multiverse for.

Earth-77995

Earth-77995

The true son of Scott and Jean Summers, this Nathan had been born after his parents had retired from being X-Men and went to live in Alaska and also had a younger sister Rachel. When Professor X came to Scott and Jean for help with an opposing threat they turned him down. Though when the news hit of the battle in Washington DC between the X-Men and Apocalypse, Scott and Jean left Nathan and Rachel in the care of their grandparents and told them that they would return soon. After the battle and both Apocalypse and Xavier died, Nathan and Rachel would become students of Xavier's Institute as Scott and Jean came out of retirement.

Earth-95169

Earth-95169

In this reality Stryfe had succeeded in destroying the X-men. The only survivors were Cable, Bishop and Wolverine.

Earth-97193

Earth-97193

In a world where Wolverine went totally feral Cable set out on a lone mission to put him down.

OTHER MEDIA

X-Men: The Animated Series

Animated Series

Cable made many appearances throughout the run of the entire animated series, his first appearance being Slave Island(Episode 7).

During this first appearance he is not affected by the T-O Virus and is depicted as just being a mercenary that finds out he was working for the wrong side.

In his second appearance in a 2-part episode, Jean Grey senses him and sees that he is her son. Additionally, when he asks his computer to tell him about the X-Men, he tells it he already knows about Scott Summers and Jean Grey.

Video Games

Marvel vs. Capcom 2

Marvel v. Capcom 2

Cable is a playable character in the game.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

Ultimate Alliance 2

Cable has sided with Captain America and the anti-registration forces and acts as Cap's second in command.

Cable is also a playable DLC character. He uses a high-tech gun, which can shoot various types of ammo.

Marvel: Avengers Alliance

Cable is a playable character in the Facebook game Marvel: Avengers Alliance, his cost is 135 Command Points and he is a Blaster Class. Cable's powers include Cone of Silence, Metal Resilience, T-O Control and his attacks are Plasma Rifle, Bodyslide, Asknai Arts, and Temporal Shift.

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